Communications networks are widely used for nationwide and worldwide communication of voice, multimedia and/or data. As used herein, the term Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), terrestrial and/or satellite cellular networks, private networks and/or the Internet.
The Internet is a decentralized network of computers that can communicate with one another via Internet Protocol (IP). The Internet includes the World Wide Web (WWW) service facility, which is a client/server-based facility that includes a large number of servers (computers connected to the Internet) on which Web pages or files reside, as well as clients (Web browsers), which interface users with the Web pages. The topology of the World Wide Web can be described as a network of networks, with providers of network services called Network Service Providers, or NSPs. Servers that provide application-layer services may be referred to as Application Service Providers (ASPs). Sometimes a single service provider provides both functions.
Television networks include both traditional broadcast networks as well as cable and satellite television networks. The combination of the Internet, wireless/wireline telecommunication networks, television networks, and the like may provide a user with many sources for content.
Referring to FIG. 1, a demand curve 10 representative of the demand for goods/services of virtually any industry, is illustrated. The portion of the curve designated as “H” indicates products/services referred to as “head-of-tail” products/services i.e., products/services which traditionally have dominated industry sales. For example, in the music and book industries, head-of-tail sales are traditionally known as “hits” or “best sellers.” The part of the demand curve 10 designated as “LT” indicates products/services know as “long tail” products/services. Long tail products/services are the non-hits, or niches, which is where many marketers believe new growth is coming from for many industries. For example, conventional retail stores stock the likely hits, because of the finite amount of shelf space, and because shelf space is expensive. However, online retailers (e.g., Amazon, Apple Computer's iTunes, etc.) can stock virtually everything since storage is not an issue. In virtually every industry, the number of available niche products/services (i.e., long tail products/services) may outnumber the hits by several orders of magnitude.
With respect to on-line content (e.g., audio content, video content, etc.) there are many niches of long tail content that have been largely neglected by traditional content suppliers. Marketers have recently discovered that there is tremendous demand for long tail content and that demand is less hit-centric than previously thought. As a result, on-line content providers are increasingly searching for ways of exploiting long tail content. Moreover, on-line content providers are searching for ways of maximizing revenue from the exploitation of long tail content.